ABOUT 150 people packed the church in London’s Camden Town for a fundraiser to help Haiti after the destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew last October.

In 2010, the Haitians had suffered a devastating earthquake, followed by the theft by the Red Cross and other NGOs of billions of dollars generously donated by the public and then a cholera epidemic brought by UN troops who had occupied the beleaguered state since 2004.

Many who oppose racism and imperialism admire the Haitians for ending slavery with a revolution that created the first independent Black republic in 1804.

A central part of the fundraiser was to tell the story of the Mangrove Nine, when black people in ’70s Britain successfully defeated an attempt by the police and Crown Prosecution Service to criminalise the anti-racist struggle. Mangrove and Haiti proved to be a dynamite combination.

The trial of the Mangrove Nine — seven men and two women charged with affray, rioting and conspiracy — was a landmark, setting legal precedents and winning the first judicial acknowledgement of racism within the Metropolitan Police. It followed arrests at a peaceful demo (Aug 1970) against constant police harassment of The Mangrove restaurant, a popular eating and meeting place for the local community.

Keynote speaker Altheia Jones-Lecointe, one of the Mangrove Nine, an activist since she was a student in the ’60s and a founder of Britain’s Black Panther Movement (BPM), gave a spellbinding account of how the Mangrove defendants organised with the community. The BPM prepared for the trial by studying The Black Jacobins, Cyril Lionel Robert James’s account of the Haitian revolution.

Jones-Lecointe and Darcus Howe defended themselves; the other woman defendant Barbara Bees was represented by (now QC) Ian MacDonald, the event’s other keynote speaker. MacDonald worked on legal strategy with all the defendants and it was clear from both his and Jones-Lecointe’s account that this political co-operation had enabled the winning creativity of the defence.

Eddie Lacointe suggested that a daily bulletin of court proceedings be circulated to keep supporters informed. The community united behind the trial, packed the public gallery and held a picket outside every day.

Jones-Lecointe reported that the police regularly arrested one or two picketers and that in response they called a women only picket. This so astonished and intimidated the police that the arrests stopped.

We learnt from MacDonald that the lawyers of the other defendants did not want to organise collectively. They shied away from spelling out the racism and tried to get their client off irrespective of the other defendants. But the community’s organisation was strong enough to keep all nine defendants together despite this weak and divisive legal representation. He also described how he challenged having an all-white jury and won a few black jurors — unheard of then and difficult now since the legal right to challenge jury selection has been curtailed.

This team work between defendants, lawyer and community won the jury over despite the best efforts of the racist police and prosecution. The nine were acquitted of all serious charges.

One question and two contributions in the Q&A that followed stand out. When asked what we should be doing now, Jones-Lecointe replied: “The same thing.”

Legal Action for Women based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre told how this method of community legal defence was adopted and adapted by groups at the centre to good effect. Another contributor told how the people of Gaza who have so little had sent a solidarity donation to Haiti after the earthquake. There was a strong feeling that Haiti and Palestine must be an integral part of everyone’s anti-racist agenda.

Jones-Lecointe had returned to the Caribbean with a PhD in the late ’70s and lectured on biochemistry at the University of the West Indies. Her Mangrove background shaped her career decisions: she worked out that “being a scientist was not very useful to the Caribbean people at that time,” and retrained in medicine becoming a consultant haematologist.

Returning to Britain now, she spoke of how the growing movement lead by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, both anti-racists, was tremendous, and urged people of colour to join that movement.

The co-ordinator of Global Women’s Strike (GWS) Selma James — who had been at the original demonstration and was Jones-Lecointe’s witness at the trial — co-chaired a meeting with her GWS Women of Colour campaign colleague Cristel Amiss.

In the concluding segment of the evening, the diverse and delighted audience were deeply moved by Linton Kwesi Johnson’s wonderful reading of his own poetry and that of John Larose.

The audience insisted on an encore and he obliged to thunderous applause. Kwesi was one of the activists supporting the Mangrove Nine at the time. The evening ended to the fantastic beat and song of the Burru drummers. Regretfully, Jimmy Senya Haynes, a great guitarist, was unable to attend.

Twenty groups and individuals sponsored the event, including the Bakers Food & Allied Workers Union, Caribbean Labour Solidarity, Greater Manchester Momentum BAME Caucus, Sixteen Films (I, Daniel Blake), and Benjamin Zephaniah.

A Haiti Action/GWS observers’ report on recent elections in Haiti was made available. Tens of thousands continue to protest against vote rigging and US sabotage. Haitians have never been forgiven for their “revolutionary impertinence” but have never given up though they face continuous imperialist attacks and exploitation. Their struggle can be summed up in the recent call against the electoral coup: “We will not obey.” We must support that.

Upwards of £1,500 was collected for the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF) which takes no cut. The practical support they give goes directly to people in Haiti who are most in need and most active for the community.

Fundraising continues. We aim to send as much as possible before Christmas. A number of people are making direct debits, or taking collections in their workplaces and organisations.

• Please give generously to HERF or to the GWS which will forward it.